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Navigating the process of buying or selling a business can feel daunting for entrepreneurs. That’s where Transworld Business Advisors excels, offering expertise that simplifies complex transactions. Ranked #57 on Entrepreneur‘s 2025 Franchise 500 and the top performer in the business services category, Transworld has earned its place as a trusted leader in the industry.

• Overall Franchise 500 rank: 57
• Number of units: 486
• Change in units: +52.4% over 3 years
• Initial investment: $97,000-$122,000

Related: Considering franchise ownership? Get started now to find your personalized list of franchises that match your lifestyle, interests and budget.

Transworld specializes in business brokerage, franchise consulting and franchise development, making it a one-stop shop for those looking to take the next step in business ownership. With a network of more than 300 offices worldwide, Transworld connects buyers and sellers across industries and provides the tools and strategies to ensure successful outcomes.

Transworld’s comprehensive training and support are critical for franchise owners. New franchisees gain access to proven systems, cutting-edge marketing strategies and a network of experienced advisors who help them thrive in their local markets. Transworld’s model emphasizes relationship-building, ensuring franchisees become trusted advisors in their communities.

Related: The One Factor the Top Franchises of 2025 Have in Common

The brand’s growth reflects the increasing demand for professional guidance in business transactions. Whether helping a retiring business owner find the right buyer or guiding an aspiring entrepreneur toward their dream opportunity, Transworld creates meaningful connections that drive economic success. By leveraging its extensive network, industry expertise and personalized approach, Transworld facilitates transactions that not only meet financial goals but also align with the unique aspirations and needs of its clients. This focus on creating mutually beneficial outcomes has cemented Transworld’s reputation as a trusted partner in the business brokerage industry.

Transworld Business Advisors offers a rewarding franchise opportunity for entrepreneurs passionate about helping others achieve their goals. Backed by decades of experience, a strong global network and a proven track record, Transworld is more than a business — it’s a platform for empowering entrepreneurs to succeed.

Related: Explore the full 2025 Franchise 500 list, complete with category rankings.

A new study released Tuesday by Hult International Business School and independent research firm Workplace Intelligence found that even when faced with widespread talent shortages, employers would rather hire a robot or AI than a recent grad.

The study surveyed 800 human resources leaders and 800 recent graduates (ages 22 to 27) in business roles, including finance/accounting, marketing, sales, management, operations/logistics, and business analytics/intelligence.

Nearly all HR leaders, 98%, said their organization was struggling to find talent, yet 89% stated that they avoid hiring recent graduates.

Related: AI Could Replace 200,000 Jobs on Wall Street, According to a New Report. These Are the Jobs Most at Risk.

When asked why, hiring managers said that recent graduates lack real-world experience (60%), a global mindset (57%), teamwork skills (55%), the right skill sets (51%), and the proper business etiquette (50%).

Three out of 10 HR leaders would rather leave a position unfilled than hire a recent graduate.

Nearly four out of ten (37%) would rather have a robot or AI do the job than a recent grad while 45% say they would rather hire a freelancer.

Related: AI Can Now Apply to 1,000 Jobs While You Sleep. Here’s How Many Interviews an AI Bot Creator Got in One Month.

At companies that have taken the plunge and hired recent grads in the past year, the majority (78%) have already fired at least some of them.

Meanwhile, recent graduates who have successfully joined companies have found the work experience invaluable. 77% said they learned more in half a year on the job than in four years of undergrad and 87% said their employer provided better job training than college.

Over half (55%) said that college didn’t prepare them in any way for the job they currently hold.

Related: Here Are the 10 Fastest Growing Jobs for 2025, According to LinkedIn.

“Our survey revealed that traditional college programs aren’t providing what students need to be successful in today’s fast-paced and increasingly tech-focused work environment,” Dan Schawbel, Managing Partner of Workplace Intelligence, stated.

So what do recent grads lack that HR leaders are looking for? Technology skills, especially in AI, data analytics, and IT, are important to 97% of HR leaders, but only 20% of recent graduates possess these skills.

“Theory alone is no longer enough,” said Martin Boehm, executive vice President and Global Dean of Undergraduate Programs at Hult International Business School. “Preparing students in new ways, with a focus on building both the skills and mindsets needed for continuous learning, is the future of education.”

President Donald Trump was sworn in on Monday as the 47th U.S. president.

Incoming White House officials told reporters that Trump would sign executive orders in his first days in office, and possibly at his rally Monday evening. The orders are expected to address economic issues like inflation and tariffs, reiterating remarks made by the President himself at his inauguration.

“Today I will sign a series of historic executive orders,” Trump stated in his inaugural speech. “With these actions, we will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense. It’s all about common sense.”

^{U.S. President Donald Trump gives his inaugural address. Photo by Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images}

The New York Times estimates that Trump has promised to sign close to 100 executive orders in the coming days.

The first economic executive order Trump addressed in his inaugural speech was related to inflation and energy.

Trump claimed that inflation was due to rising energy costs and government overspending. He stated that he would work to “rapidly bring down costs and prices” by signing an executive order declaring a national energy emergency so that the U.S. could produce and export more of its own oil and gas.

Related: Donald Trump’s Meme Coin $TRUMP Surges to $10.7 Billion Ahead of Inauguration

“We will bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again, right to the top, and export American energy all over the world,” Trump said.

White House officials told ABC News reporters that the move would create jobs and reduce regulations around the energy industry.

The U.S. was the world’s largest exporter of motor gasoline in 2023, supplying more than 16% of total global exports, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

No president has declared a “national energy emergency” before, according to E&E News, though President Jimmy Carter did declare regional energy emergencies, including one in Pennsylvania in 1978.

Related: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos Get the VIP Treatment at Donald Trump’s Inauguration–With Seats In Front of the President’s Own Cabinet Picks

Trump is also expected to sign an executive order ending the Biden administration’s electric vehicle mandate, which gave more than $1 billion in incentives through tax credits for purchases of electric vehicles.

“We will revoke the electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto industry and keeping my sacred pledge to our great American autoworkers,” Trump said in his inaugural speech, adding, “We will build automobiles in America again at a rate that nobody could have dreamt possible just a few years ago.”

White House officials said that Trump expects to end the electric vehicle mandate through executive order “as soon as possible.”

Related: Elon Musk Makes a Case for Tesla in X Livestream with Donald Trump

Another economic executive order Trump spoke about in his speech was the establishment of the External Revenue Service, to collect tariffs and taxes from foreign countries.

“Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens,” Trump stated.

Trump also said he would establish the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which is designed to reform government bureaucracy and reduce inefficiencies. He first announced the department in November.

According to Fresh Books, a college degree makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to small-business revenue. That’s good news for those who would prefer to develop new skills online in the comfort of their own home. If you’d like to start a new tech career in 2025, The Ultimate Cybersecurity & IT Career Certification Pathway Training Bundle is an excellent way to start.

This bundle offers preparation courses for certification exams that will add impressive weight to your bio if you plan to offer freelance services or provide you with skills you can use in your own business even if you don’t need the certifications. There are courses for beginners, as well as advanced modules you can add as you become more experienced.

Basic users of computers, the Internet, mobile devices and networks can start with CompTIA IT Fundamentals ITF+ FC0-U61. Or go from beginner to advanced with the Core 1 and 2 CompTIA A+ Certification modules, both of which have impressive ratings of 4.7 out of 5 stars from former students.

Once you’ve mastered those lessons, or if you already have that experience, you can take the CompTIA Network+ Certification N10-007 course, which helps you to develop the skills of a mid-level network technician. These give you the foundation to move up to the cybersecurity courses: CompTIA Security+ Certification SY0-501, CompTIA CySA+ Cybersecurity Analyst CS0-001 and CompTIA PenTest+ PT0-001.

There is one more specific module, the Cisco CCNA 200-301 Exam: Complete Course with Practical Labs. If you are particularly interested in working for Cisco, these lessons focus on the internet, including the Internet of Things (IoT), which will continue to grow into the future.

These courses are provided by Total Seminars. The company provides certification training materials and services to thousands of corporations, schools and government agencies, including the FBI, United Nations, and Department of Defense.

Get The Ultimate Cybersecurity & IT Career Certification Pathway Training Bundle today while its price has dropped to just $24.97.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Robotics and artificial intelligence: Words typically accompanied by the backdrop of a neon cityscape full of high rises,and never ending streams of cars flying past. From Bladerunner to The Jetsons, a future of technology is often predicated on ideas of sprawling, gritty urbanity, where wired, manufactured components replace biological structures completely.

However, at Greenfield Robotics, the role of cutting edge technology is to support nature, not supplant it.

For decades, the agricultural industry has grappled with critical challenges such as the extensive use of harmful chemicals and the resultant environmental degradation. Phasing out herbicides and pesticides has been a difficult task due to the lack of alternatives that could function with the same efficiency at scale.

But Clint Brauer, the founder of Greenfield Robotics, realized that there was an unexpected answer to the problem. By harnessing AI-powered robotic technology to revolutionize no-till farming methods, he built a team at Greenfield to create technology that promises not only to mitigate environmental impact but also to enhance the sustainability and efficiency of farming operations, all without chemicals.

Greenfield Robotics leverages cutting-edge technology to power autonomous robots that are designed specifically for the agriculture industry. Brauer, who is himself a third-generation farmer, says, “The reason we created these initial robots was to solve a pretty basic problem. Weeds have become resistant to herbicides, and so then you have to use more of those chemicals… There’s no resistance to a blade.”

The fleet was built and developed in Cheney, Kan. to navigate fields independently, equipped with spinning blades to cut through even the hardiest, most stubborn stalks. The robots are able to keep crop damage to less than 1% during the process, which is a much better record than large-scale spray rigs. Machine vision and learning help them identify field boundaries and obstacles in real-time, while a smaller chassis allows them to operate more nimbly than traditional heavy machinery and avoid crushing crop rows.

By implementing Greenfield’s robots-as-a-service methodology, farmers will no longer need to purchase their own sprayers, which can run up to $1 million or more, and they would be able to cut the cost of post-plant herbicides out of their budgets, Brauer says.

A big part of what makes herbicide use so problematic is that long-term adoption of chemicals like glyphosate has resulted in generations of superweeds, which have become resistant and require stronger, more toxic solutions. Further, since glyphosate functions as an enzyme inhibitor, it can also stunt the growth of the very crops it’s meant to help and harm other species that are endemic to local biomes.

In recent years, many farmers have been shifting away from tillage and instead putting regenerative practices in place. Ideas like cover cropping and no tillage farming aren’t new, but they are being rediscovered as effective methods of naturally managing weeds as well as returning nutrition back into the soil—thus “regenerative.” These practices emphasize maintaining soil integrity by keeping it planted and undisturbed, allowing it to build a healthy ecosystem that helps prevent erosion, retain water, and even draw carbon out of the air and back into the earth. The result is land that increases the nutrient density of the crops grown, which also means that when growing season comes, the crops are stronger and more vital, too.

But adopting new practices while maintaining seasonal calendars can be taxing and difficult, sometimes impossible at the speed and scale required. Greenfield Robotics provides an automated solution. Unlike spray rigs, which require human operators and can only be driven safely during daylight hours, Greenfield’s robots run on rechargeable lithium ion batteries that go for five hours at a time for weeding. Since they follow AI-drawn paths based on overhead drone imagery, they can run deep into the night without issue. When there are storms, it can take a week before the ground is solid enough for heavy machinery to be able to go back to work, but soft ground and mud is less of an issue for the lighter robots. All of these factors allow the robots to shave entire days off of an arduous, expensive, and necessary task that must be done multiple times a year.

The implementation of Greenfield’s robots-as-a-service results in a “triple-win” solution for farmers, with positive impact for the climate, consumers, and on the bottom line for farmers.

Greenfield Robotics is not just changing farming practices on individual farms, but is also setting a precedent for the global agricultural sector. By demonstrating the effectiveness and efficiency of robotic weed control, Greenfield Robotics is opening the door to more sustainable farming methods worldwide.

This technology-driven approach is gradually shaping the thinking and practices around regenerative agriculture. Greenfield Robotics has worked live on farm fields for the past three years and continue to expand their reach.

Every year the systems take a big leap forward and Greenfield Robotics aims to refine their systems, increase the capabilities of their robots by developing new tools for farmers, and scale their solutions to meet global demands. Bauer shares more of their R&D, “Whether it is to improve sensors that can analyze plant tissue in real time and identify nutrient deficiencies or adding cover cropping capabilities, the team is always working to develop additional functionality to the fleet.”

Greenfield Robotics stands at the forefront of agricultural innovation, and are receiving support throughout the industry. With the backing of major industry players such as Chipotle, ILS Beef, and MKC agricultural co-op with 11,000 farming customers, Greenfield is leading the way toward a new era where technology and traditional farming work hand in hand.

By helping farms adopt concepts like cover cropping and no-tillage farming, Bauer and Greenfield Robotics are bringing agriculture back to the future. Combining time-tested practices with cutting-edge technology, it’s paving the way for a healthier, more sustainable future. The opportunity to remove toxic herbicides completely from farming and our food is within reach.

If you’d like to be a part of the Greenfield Robotics mission, visit to learn more: https://investgreenfieldrobotics.com/

*Disclaimer: In making an investment decision, investors must rely on their own examination of the issuer and the terms of the offering, including the merits and risks involved. Greenfield Robotics has filed a Form C with the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with its offering, a copy of which may be obtained here.*

The era of easy website traffic is over. With AI-powered search summaries like Google’s AI Overviews already slashing organic traffic by as much as 64%, businesses that rely on traditional SEO are facing a crisis.

In this video, I reveal the stark reality of the changing digital landscape and outline a new strategy for survival. You’ll learn how to optimize your content for AI-driven platforms beyond Google, including ChatGPT Search and Perplexity AI. I’ll also share my personal experience of how a major algorithm change impacted my business, and why building a strong opt-in strategy is your best defense.

Get the insights you need to protect your traffic and thrive in 2025.

Download the free ‘AI Success Kit’ (limited time only). And you’ll also get a free chapter from Ben’s brand new book, ‘The Wolf is at The Door – How to Survive and Thrive in an AI-Driven World.’

New year, new raise?

Resume Genius released its 2025 Wage Growth Report this week identifying jobs that can expect to receive pay increases in the coming year. The career site’s researchers used three years of wage data (2021-2023) from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics database to formulate the report.

Related: These Are the 10 Highest-Paying Jobs With the Lowest Stress, According to a New Report

The jobs on this list range in salary from $41,000 to $449,320, and the raises professionals in these roles could get this year ranged from $2,380 to $86,350.

The positions also varied considerably, from dentists to personal finance advisors.

“Heading into 2025, it’s a good career move for professionals to understand which industries are thriving,” said Resume Genius Senior Writer Eva Chan. “Fields like healthcare, technology, and renewable energy have high projected job growth, and knowing what roles are paying well can help workers make confident, informed decisions about their next career move in areas full of opportunity.”

Related: Looking for a Remote Job? Here Are the Most In-Demand Skills to Have on Your Resume, According to Employers.

Here are the top 10 jobs for wage growth that are most likely to receive a pay raise in 2025, according to the report.

1. Pediatric surgeon

2023 mean annual salary: $449,320

2022 mean annual salary: $362,970

Pay raise from 2022 to 2023: $86,350

Average pay growth (2021 to 2023): 24%

2. Airline pilot, copilot, and flight engineer

2023 mean annual salary: $250,050

2022 mean annual salary: $225,750

Pay raise from 2022 to 2023: $24,300

Average pay growth (2021 to 2023): 12%

3. Dentist

2023 mean annual salary: $244,470

2022 mean annual salary: $233,430

Pay raise from 2022 to 2023: $11,040

Average pay growth (2021 to 2023): 17%

4. Industrial-organizational psychologist

2023 mean annual salary: $154,380

2022 mean annual salary: $144,610

Pay raise from 2022 to 2023: $9,770

Average pay growth (2021 to 2023): 17%

5. Personal financial advisor

2023 mean annual salary: $150,670

2022 mean annual salary: $137,740

Pay raise from 2022 to 2023: $12,930

Average pay growth (2021 to 2023): 12%

6. Veterinarian

2023 mean annual salary: $136,300

2022 mean annual salary: $129,110

Pay raise from 2022 to 2023: $7,190

Average pay growth (2021 to 2023): 12%

7. Management analyst

2023 mean annual salary: $115,530

2022 mean annual salary: $104,660

Pay raise from 2022 to 2023: $10,870

Average pay growth (2021 to 2023): 7%

8. Wind turbine service technician

2023 mean annual salary: $65,380

2022 mean annual salary: $59,880

Pay raise from 2022 to 2023: $5,500

Average pay growth (2021 to 2023): 6%

9. Skincare specialist

2023 mean annual salary: $51,100

2022 mean annual salary: $47,790

Pay raise from 2022 to 2023: $3,310

Average pay growth (2021 to 2023): 11%

10. Psychiatric aid

2023 mean annual salary: $41,000

2022 mean annual salary: $38,620

Pay raise from 2022 to 2023: $2,380

Average pay growth (2021 to 2023): 9%

New AI products are constantly coming to market with promises to revolutionize some aspects of your business and save you time and, ultimately, money. It’s an exciting time, full of promise, but it’s important to sift through the hype and take a hard look at whether the benefits justify the costs.

Take workforce data analytics. Employee dissatisfaction and disengagement, especially among younger workers, have been a hot topic since the pandemic. It’s a critical issue, but many business owners are unaware of just how costly employee turnover can be. A median-size S&P 500 company can lose between $228 million and $355 million a year in lost productivity from employee disengagement and attrition, according to McKinsey research.

Related: The AI Tool Your Competitors Don’t Want You to Know About

Even when companies acknowledge they have a problem, they often create interventions to address the issue with little more than guesswork. AI gives businesses the opportunity to analyze their workforce issues more affordably than hiring a pricey consulting firm. AI data analytics tools can now predict the precise cost of employee turnover, identify the causes and offer data-driven solutions to prevent it.

Just because the technology exists, however, doesn’t mean your company will automatically benefit. You should vet decisions on whether to deploy AI solutions using the same rigorous cost-benefit analysis you use in every other aspect of your business.

Below are six questions to ask yourself before you commit:

1. How many employees do I have? AI workforce analytics typically only starts to pay off once your company has more than 50 employees. That’s because it takes resources to collect and structure the data, and it’s at the larger numbers that analytics become complex enough to justify the costs.
2. What kind of data am I already collecting? For predictive workforce AI analytics to work, your company needs to be collecting a lot of data already, preferably using employee management software. Useful data include employee schedule adherence and variability, employee utilization, sentiment around feedback reviews, employee skill sets, overtime hours and overtime pay.
3. What’s my free cash flow budget to apply to R&D? Even if you’re collecting a lot of data, you still need a robust pipeline to structure the data, and that can mean high upfront costs. Simple descriptive AI tools won’t require as much investment but also won’t deliver the same predictive insights. Be sure you know precisely what your AI tool is offering and what you will need to spend to make those insights pay off for you in the long run.
4. What outside data does my AI tool crunch? A strong predictive AI tool will combine your internal company data with external data affecting employee satisfaction — right down to traffic patterns on workers’ commutes. Ask questions at the start. What data does my AI tool bring to the table that I can’t access on my own?
5. Are my current workforce retention strategies working? If you’ve already tried to tackle an employee retention problem, do you have data to back up the effectiveness of interventions? Or are you flying blind? A good workforce data analytics firm can use causal analysis to determine whether you’re wasting money on solutions that don’t get to the root of the problem.
6. What’s my ROI? You need to calculate the cost of employee attrition at your company, the cost savings from implementing changes to help you retain top talent, minus the expense of implementing AI data analytics. How does it compare to the expense of a consulting firm? A good workforce data analytics company can help you determine whether it’s worth the investment, and an honest one will tell you when it’s not.

Related: What Is Artificial Intelligence (AI)? Here Are Its Benefits, Uses and More

AI workforce analytics tools have incredible potential. They can identify which employees are planning to leave your company — before they even know. New tools give small and mid-size businesses access to information and insights that were impossible to come by in the past. Still, it’s wise to be cautious and to make sure the investment will pay off for your business in the long run.

Entrepreneurship is starting a company. Intrapreneurship is transforming a business from within as an employee.

Elizabeth Funk is familiar with both paths. As an early employee at Yahoo! and Microsoft, Funk helped pioneer services like Yahoo! Shopping and Microsoft Word. After thinking online shopping would be a cool feature, she pitched and wrote the first code for Yahoo! Shopping herself. She was also a product manager on the early team for Microsoft Word and part of the original founding team that created Microsoft Office.

^{Elizabeth Funk. Photo Credit: In Her Image Photography.}

Now, as the founder and CEO of the nonprofit DignityMoves, Funk strives to find Silicon Valley-level disruptive solutions to homelessness, a problem that affected more than 771,800 Americans in 2024. DignityMoves addresses unsheltered homelessness by developing interim housing to get people off the streets as quickly as possible.

Related: Challenges Are Opportunities’: Reebok’s 89-Year-Old Founder Is Launching the World’s First Futuristic AI Shoe

Entrepreneur interviewed Funk about how she displayed intrapreneurship at Microsoft and Yahoo!, her approach to problems, and the lessons that she’s bringing with her to DignityMoves.

You were one of the first employees at Yahoo! and on the early team for Microsoft Office. What was it like working on these products?
At Yahoo! we were making it up as we went along. We had no idea how people were going to use the Internet, or what it could do. I was coming from software (Microsoft), where it would take 18 months before a new feature idea would be in users’ hands (back then we printed the software on CDs and shipped it in packages). At Yahoo! I could come up with a feature, put it out on the web, sleep a few hours under my desk (a frequent habit), and wake up to see that a million plus people had used it, as well as how they’d used it. Trial and error was a fundamental design strategy. There was very little downside risk to putting out a feature to see if it appealed.

How did you approach problems on these teams?
At both companies, it was fundamental that we had very collaborative working styles. At Yahoo!, we tried to do as many meetings standing as possible. Once you sit for a meeting you’re presumed there in that seat for 60 minutes. Who decided that all issues require exactly 60 minutes to solve? Instead, the person calling the meeting would pre-socialize the issue with folks individually, narrow it down to a few choices, and ideally the team would stand in the conference room, debate the pros and cons, and decide. We also did not believe in “democracy” in this environment. If you require unanimity you’ll end up with the lowest common denominator.

What was Yahoo! Shopping’s origin story?
In the early days of Yahoo! I was one of the only females. I kept thinking “Wouldn’t it be cool if you could shop online?” The guys were completely not intrigued. So I went to Barnes & Noble and bought “HTML for Dummies” and wrote [the code] myself. I got into a lot of trouble– clearly, web coding is not my forte, it was terrible. It also only had three to four links (about as many online retailers existed, at the time). But we tried it, and in retrospect, I turned out to be right.

Related: Why Embracing Intrapreneurship Will Cultivate Innovation Within Your Company

What advice would you give people looking to make a difference from within a company?
If your business model can support it, use trial-and-error, “minimal viable product” approaches to experiment before investing a lot of energy in new features or projects.

How do you approach managing people?
As a manager, I believed in giving every person their own area of (almost) full authority. Even the most junior person would “own” their small part of the business. I believe that the entrepreneurial spirit is like a precious elixir — if you could bottle it, you could sell it for $1 million per drop. There is nothing more powerful. As a manager, the secret was to find ways to instill that elixir in every employee. Magic happens.

What lessons from Yahoo! and Microsoft are you bringing with you as a founder?
At Yahoo! we thought that the global internet was going to be too massive for people– they were going to want to stay within their local communities. So we created Yahoo! LA, Yahoo! San Francisco, and so forth. It took us a while to realize that people had only defined “community” by their zip code in the past because that was their only option. Now people could define “community” by a shared love of Beanie Babies. The same seems true for how people use the internet today: they gather in community across zip codes and borders, united by what makes them unique, and what connects them to others.

Related: I Shifted From Founder to CEO 20 Years Ago and Never Looked Back — Here’s How to Successfully Make the Leap

It’s really hard to find a job right now, and the prevalence of “ghost jobs” is not helping.

According to an internal review of data by hiring platform Greenhouse, 18% to 22% of job posts are ghost listings, or roles that companies aren’t actually trying to fill.

Greenhouse has more than 7,500 clients, including Major League Baseball and HubSpot, and found that nearly 70% of the companies using its platform had posted at least one ghost job in the second quarter of 2024.

Construction, the arts, food, and legal were the industries with the most ghost jobs, according to the internal data.

For about 15% of Greenhouse’s clients, posting ghost jobs was a regular occurrence. Half of the jobs listed by this group went unfilled in the second quarter of last year.

Related: AI Can Now Apply to 1,000 Jobs While You Sleep. Here’s How Many Interviews an AI Bot Creator Got in One Month.

“It’s kind of a horror show,” Greenhouse president and co-founder Jon Stross told the Wall Street Journal, adding that “the job market has become more soul-crushing than ever.”

Greenhouse isn’t the first to study the issue. An October analysis from Resume Genius found that there were over 1.6 million potential ghost jobs on LinkedIn in the U.S. alone.

Why Do Companies Post Ghost Jobs?

According to Resume Genius, leaving up dead-end job postings is advantageous to companies because it creates the illusion that the company is growing, leaves the door open to new talent, and allows them to amass LinkedIn followers and emails for mailing lists.

Related: I Quit My Corporate Job to Start a Business. Here’s How I Went From Having $35,000 Credit Card Debt to Making $4 Million.

Clarify Capital, a small business loans site, surveyed over 1,000 hiring managers in 2022 and one of the most common reasons provided for having ghost job listings was to keep current employees motivated by giving the impression of growth.

How to Spot a Ghost Job

According to Resume Genius’ Job Seeker Insights Survey, conducted in August, nearly one in three job searchers were frustrated by ghost jobs.

Resume Genius recommends that job seekers always check the date that a position was listed and pass on applying if it was up for two months or longer. According to the Society of Human Resource Management, the average time to fill open roles was 41 days in 2024, or about a month and a half.

Another way to spot a ghost job from a job board is to cross-check the role with listings directly on the company’s site. Sometimes the company’s site will have more up-to-date information.

Checking the company’s social media and reaching out to the company directly are also options.

Related: These Are the 10 Highest-Paying Jobs With the Lowest Stress, According to a New Report